Fulfilled -- God with us. Matthew 1&2.

Note this is the only day you'll read two chapters of Matthew.
Read Matthew 1-2 online here.

Joseph awoke from a dream. Was it really an angel who had spoken to him? He'd been thinking about a quiet divorce from the young woman he'd been betrothed to. What else to do? She was pregnant. But there was no mistaking what he'd been commanded to do. He knew Isaiah's words, "the virgin will conceive a child ..." What could it possibly have to do with him? And precious Mary. But being a faithful Jew, he obeyed this powerful messenger. And those words, "all of this occurred to fulfill...", stayed with him the next day, and the next, and sustained him through the events that followed.

All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’” (Matt. 1:22,23 NLT)

Beyond the immediate message to Joseph, Matthew has filled these first two chapters with the all that occurred.

• There are the generations of ancestors from Abraham through David to Jesus -- men and women whose stories bear the unmistakeable mark of God's hand working through time to reach this point, the birth of Messiah, Immanuel, God with us.


• There is the reminder of God's original promise made to Abraham -- his offspring would bless all the nations.


• There is the reminder of God's renewed promise made to David that his descendants would have an everlasting kingdom.


• There is the reminder of punishment by exile for continual disobedience and mercy and restoration in the return from exile.


• There is the reminder that God's spokesman told of the event that would take place, this miraculous conception and birth.

There's more.

The cosmos are altered to announce this birth. Astrologers are drawn by this message announced by a star, and become the instrument of both near death and rescue. God's messenger warns Joseph to flee to Egypt and he does. God warns the astrologers to avoid King Herod's wrath. And they do. And when Joseph and his family return to Israel, God warns them a final time to move to Nazareth. The words of God's spokesmen are fulfilled four more times through these events.

God's purposes will be fulfilled. Through time, space, human shortcomings, the rise and fall of nations, the loyalty of a daughter-in-law, the courage of a shepherd, through mercy, vendetta, intrigue, war, feast and famine, even through a sea and into the wilderness, God's purposes will be fulfilled. It's all there in these first two chapters of Matthew.

And while it may seem almost silly to think that somehow God's purposes could be thwarted, consider this. He has allowed us as human beings to rebel against His desires for us, allowing our own will to supercede His. And we did rebel. And so to fulfill His desire and original purpose for us to love Him as our Creator, He entered His creation as Son, God with us. God's purpose fulfilled.